Before the iPhone 7 is released, I thought it would be interesting to see what prices are like these days for an iPhone 6s 64GB on a 24 month contract. And wow, prices just keep going up, don't they? They seem to be getting more expensive every year! Can't wait to see how more they go up for the iPhone 7.

In this post, I'm going to be comparing the big four Australian telecommunication companies; Optus, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, and Telstra, to see which one offers me the best plan at the lowest cost.

The criteria will be; plan cost, and value between calls, text, and most importantly, data! I am not comparing how supposedly great their coverage is or how bad their customer service is. I am assuming for this that you are in a city / suburban area, so coverage isn't a problem. Also I'm not looking at if the customer wants to upgrade again next year. This will be assuming that you plan to keep the iPhone for 24 months. Also I will not be including any extra benefits like data exclusions to Spotify or a 6 Month Apple Music membership, etc...

First important part to this, is to work out what an iPhone 6s 64GB sells for (brand new from Apple) today. And that is $1,229.00. Over the course of 24 months the price would divide to $51.21 per month.  This is important for when we compare phone payment costs to the plan itself.

First up, lets look at

Optus:

At Optus, I could go on the $84 iPhone plan (a $40 plan plus $44 phone payments) and receive 1GB of Data and Unlimited Calls and Text in Australia. 

Or, their recommended plan of $91 per month ($65 plan, $26 for the iPhone) and receive 3.5GB of Data, Unlimited Calls and Text, and also get 150 minutes of International Calls. 

However, if I buy the iPhone outright from Apple, I could go on a 12 month Optus Sim Only plan, pay $30 per month and get Unlimited Calls and Text and 1.5GB of Data, and only pay the equivalent of $81.21 per month. That's $2.79 cheaper per month ($66.96 over 24 months and the difference of 12,000GB more data).

Or better yet, how about their $40 Sim Only Plan (for 12 months) which'll get me the same Unlimited Calls and Text, but a huge 8GB of data! And 300 minutes of International Calls. Total per month with our outright iPhone 6s payment divided, equals $91.21 per month. Extra 21 cents per month for and extra 4.5GB of data a month? Worth it!

Optus summary: Buy the iPhone outright and get a Sim-Only plan for 12 months! It'll be better value.


Next up, the network that uses the Optus Network, so is pretty much the same as going with Optus;


Virgin Mobile:

At Virgin mobile their cheapest iPhone 6s 64GB plan is $67 ($30 plan plus $37 for phone). But, they only give you $300 worth of calls and a measly 300MB of data. We already have Optus to compare with, so lets look at a higher plan.

$76 per month! Unlimited Calls and Text within Australia and 1GB of Data. This is the equivalent plan to Optus's $84 plan. Which means, Virgin Mobile, the company that uses the Optus Network remember, is $8 cheaper per month. $192 cheaper over the length of your contract, for the same plan!

Lets go even higher, we want to find the equivalent (cost) plan to the Optus $91 plan. And that'd be Virgin mobiles $90 plan. It includes Unlimited Calls and Text within Australia and 6GB of Data! That's 2.5GB more than Optus, per month.

What about their Sim-Only plans? $40 will get you 7GB, Unlimited Calls and Text and $200 worth of standard international calls. Throw in another $10 to get 10GB Data, and $300 of international. Compared to Optus? The Sim Only plans seem a little more worth it from Optus.

Virgin Mobile Summary: If you were to get a iPhone and Plan, Virgin Mobile has cheaper plans and offers better value for your money than Optus.


Vodafone:

Over at Vodafone you can get the iPhone 6s 64GB for $96 per month, which includes "Infinite" standard national calls and text and 6GB Data.  Since this plan is already more expensive with little difference to the Virgin mobile $90 plan - we shall move on!

By the way, their SIM Only plan, less value on Data than Optus.

Vodafone Summary: More expensive than Virgin mobile, however still more Data than Optus gives for at the similar price, unless you go on a SIM only plan from Optus, which then Optus offers a better deal.



Lastly,


Telstra:

Telstra didn't have a great year, with a few network dropouts that lasted hours! Lets see how their plans compare.

On the Telstra Network, they'll give you a iPhone 6s 64GB starting from $95 per month with 1GB Data and $550 "talk time"...

Should I really even bother going on? ...Fine. What do they recommend?

Their "L" plan (I guess that stands for 'large' or it could be 'loser'), includes Unlimited Talk, Text and MMS, and 8GB of data for...

$121 per month.

Go **** yourselves!

Telstra Summary: Stay the **** away from Telstra, unless you want to be ripped off, in my opinion!



Conclusion:

I really hope the Australian telecommunication companies see this post and create some better and more competitive plans for the iPhone 7. And not just use it as an excuse to raise the price even more.

So who won this? Definitely the mobile companies. 'Cause the customers ain't, that's for sure!

But, really, from these calculations, the best deal for a iPhone 6s 64GB and a Plan together (today, September 1st 2016) was with Virgin Mobile on their $76 or $90 plan, depending on how much data you'd like.

But more surprisingly, the best solution would be to buy the iPhone 6s 64GB outright and go on the Optus SIM Only $40 plan for 12 months. It gets you unlimited calls and text, and 8GB of Data for a combine cost equalling $91.21 per month (over 24 months).

My message to the phone companies, firstly, well done for ripping us all off. Now;

To Optus: Why is Virgin Mobile's contract plans cheaper than yours! They use your network! Why should I choose you over Virgin Mobile?

To Virgin Mobile: Well done on offering competitive prices.

To Vodafone: You guys are still around? I thought you went out of business. Lower your prices.

To Telstra: I think I summed up my thoughts on you above, but I don't care how great you think your network coverage is, for someone who lives in city areas, it doesn't matter! I've had no issues with other companies I've used. You are well overpriced! I don't know why anyone would choose to give you money!

For everyone else, thanks for reading, if you liked this piece or maybe learned something, please share! And leave a comment below on which company are you with and why.

The invites are out! Apple will hold a Keynote Media Event on September 7th at 10 a.m. PDT at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California. The event is most likely to announce the iPhone 7! 

Apple will be live streaming the event on their website and on Apple TV. 

There are sometimes when you just don't want someone to follow you on Instagram anymore. Maybe you've outgrown your friendship with them, maybe you had a fight, maybe it's an ex-partner, or maybe you never liked them and only let them follow you out of feeling like you had too. Whatever the reason, you just don't want them to see your photos and videos anymore, but you don't really want to block them. You just don't want them to follow you. So how do you do this? Instagram doesn't have a 'force this person to unfollow me' button... Never fear! There is a trick you can do. And after you've done this, it'd almost seem like they unfollowed you!

Okay, so the title is a little misleading and that is because you have to block them. But wait! Don't hit that back button yet! Hear me out! The trick is still coming! Okay, ready for it? Just simply block the person and then unblock them. Whaaaat! Let me explain if you don't get it yet.

When you block someone on Instagram, they'll no longer be able to see your feed or search for your name. But they can still find you either on the desktop Instagram website, if they know your username, or on a mutual friends profile. But, even if they did, they won't be able to re-follow you. Now, if you think this is a little extreme, just unblock them after blocking them. It'll still cause the following connection between you two to break, but they will still afterwards be able to search for you on Instagram. It'll just appear as if they no longer follow you. Now, of course this means that they can try re-adding you again, if they don't 'get the message'. And they might question why all of a sudden 'they stopped' following you. So... maybe it's still best just to leave them blocked.

Now, in case you've never blocked anyone on Instagram before (lucky you), here's how to do so:

Step 1. Open the Instagram app. Obviously.

Step 2. Find and view their Profile Page. You can either search for their name, go through your follower list, likes on a photo, etc...

Step 3. In the top right hand corner, tap the 'three dots' button.

Step 4. Tap 'Block User' and then confirm.

Step 5. If you wish to then unblock them, while you're still on their page, tap the 'three dots' button again, and this time tap 'Unblock User' and confirm.


-> Download Instagram from the iOS App Store. 


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Digital rendering of a Deep Blue iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus by Martin Hajek. 

One of the most interesting rumors about the next iPhone (presumably called the iPhone 7) is it's colors! There has been a rumor that Apple will add a Deep Blue color option for the iPhone 7, along side the Rose Gold, Gold, and Silver, therefore possibly replacing the Space-Gray iPhone model.

First of all, there is no way Apple would replace their top selling iPhone color, secondly, this rumor even took itself back and said that the new color is actually "Space-Black", a much darker version of the current Space-Gray. I don't know if they are colorblind or not, but I think it would be hard to mistake a blue for black/dark gray.

The second part of this rumor of the 'Deep Blue' iPhone 7, is the latest photos published not to long ago of an alleged working iPhone 7 Plus in this new color scheme by tech.ifeng.com.

Is it actually a real working iPhone 7 Plus, or just another mockup like the hundreds going around the web? Lets analyze the photos and find out once and for all!

If you want to see the photos in question, you can view them here: Alleged iPhone 7 Plus in Deep Blue. It is not the image above, that's a digital rendering.

In Photo 1 - we see the backside of this new alleged iPhone 7 Plus in this unusual color. I wouldn't even call it 'Deep Blue'. It's not that 'deep' at all, if you ask me. I will say, as far as mockups go, this iPhone looks pretty good. It even has the right camera flash on the back. Most others you find all have a single yellow flash. This one shows the correct dual colored flash.

Photo 4 - shows a closer image of the back of this "iPhone". I notice that the antenna lines shown here are white. Now, the blue-ish color isn't deep and is more on the light side, however, I doubt Apple would add white lines on a blue iPhone with a Black front screen.

The Dual-Camera, microphone, and camera flash do look about right. As far as we know.  I'll give them that. The Apple logo on the other hand... If you zoom into the image, you'll notice its imperfections. And it's biggest tell, the Apple logo doesn't fit flush, the aluminum case sits above the Apple logo. If you run your finger over your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S, you'll notice just how tight the Apple logo fits onto the aluminum case. Photo 6 also shows off how the Apple logo doesn't match against the current iPhone 6S Plus.

Photo 10 and 11 - The Volume keys and Silent Switch color doesn't match. Also a clear tell that this iPhone is not real, The Lighting Port and screws are black. With white antenna lines? Jony Ive should be fired for this! There is no way that would happen. Unless this was some Frankenstein built iPhone from spare parts of other iPhone's and the black pieces are from the Space-Black iPhone 7. ...What? One could dream!

Photo 13 - Again, the Sleep/Wake button color doesn't match the rest of the iPhone! Sim card tray has some bubbling around the hole.

Photo 14 - Shows the "iPhone" running iOS 10. Photoshop? Still image? Or maybe this is a custom built iPhone, with the back changed? Also, what's with the front facing camera? it's barely visible! It actually doesn't even look to be there! Maybe it's just a bad photo? Or Apple's really made that camera stealthy.

To sum this all up, I am calling the iPhone 7 Plus in the photos linked above, fake! This is clearly a mockup and not a real iPhone 7 Plus. So what does this mean about the possibility of a Deep Blue colored iPhone? As of this point, it's unlikely to happen, at least, we have nothing but rumors to support the claim.

If you want to know what other rumors about the iPhone 7 may be real or fake, check out my previous post - iPhone 7 Rumors Roundup: What's Likely & Unlikely To Be Real.

Got an iOS question that you want answered? Follow and tweet me on Twitter and your question just might get answered on this site! And maybe on Twitter too.  

With so many iPhone 7 rumors going around, I thought I'd roundup the best by giving my opinion on what I believe is likely to be true and which rumors are likely to be false!

What makes my opinion worth reading? Well, nothing really. So come back here after the event and make fun of just how wrong I was. Or see how many of my prediction were actually right and how awesome I really am! My guess is, I'll still be more accurate than most Analyst's opinion.

This is a fun game that you can play along with as well in the comments. So let's begin!

iPhone 7 Rumors Roundup: 

Alleged working #iPhone7 testing stage unit... https://t.co/GuYXXHjCDw pic.twitter.com/Eg1tQ0VRFt

� Steve Hemmerstoffer (@stagueve) August 4, 2016

Alleged working iPhone 7 testing unit reposted on Twitter by Steve Hemmerstoffer, a renowned leaker and the editor of Nowhereelse.fr. 

There will be a new iPhone released this September. 
LIKELY - Apple has released new iPhone's every year in September for quite some years now.


The next iPhone will be called the iPhone 7. 
LIKELY - I think Apple will continue with the naming pattern they have been using, even though the iPhone 7 may not feature much of a redesign, at least until next year, which will be the iPhone's 10th anniversary! What will it be named? iPhone 10? iPhone X? Or just maybe, iPhone?


The iPhone 7 will keep a very similar design to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S.
LIKELY - First of all, let's remember something - it's a phone. There's only so much that you can change. The front of the iPhone has looked the same since the original iPhone, despite some minor changes, like the addition of a FaceTime camera, better and bigger screens, and the Touch ID button. Apple likes their minimal designs and they are unlikely to radically change just so it's different. All design changes are for reasons, to make the iPhone better. So, yes, this years design is likely to be more of an evolution of the iPhone 6 design, not a total change. It may seem boring, but hey, you were probably just gonna slap some case on it anyway.






Apple will remove the Headphone-jack on the iPhone 7. 
LIKELY -  Unfortunately, all signs point to this being a reality. It may frustrate those who have third-party headphones, or use headphones while charging their iPhone, but lets at least hope there is a good reason for the change! If Apple removed the Headphone-jack for no gain to the user, then by all means be mad.


The iPhone 7 will feature Stereo Speakers.
UNLIKELY - There's isn't even much of a benefit of having two speakers that close to each other. It would be a waste to replace the Headphone-jack to make room for another speaker. Now, what about those extra holes, you ask? That other side will probably contain your microphone and that's all. The rest will just be for symmetry.


The iPhone 7 will have a Deep Blue color option. 
UNLIKELY - This rumor even took itself back and was replaced with the next.


The iPhone 7 will have a new dark Space-Black Color Option. 
UNLIKELY - While a new color option could help boost sales, Apple has been getting lighter with their Space-Gray color option ever since it replaced the Slate color on the iPhone 5, most likely due to the color scratching easily. While Apple could of bettered their anodizing techniques, there just hasn't been enough real leaks to support this new color rumor. But, I really hope I'm wrong on this one!


Apple will replace the 16GB entry level iPhone 7 with a 32GB Model. 
LIKELY - I think it's about time. The 16GB iPhone just doesn't have enough space to store much at all. With 4K video recording (or even 1080p), 12 megapixel photos, and app sizes growing, users would run out of space real quick! 32GB is a much more reasonable entry level. Although, I still wouldn't recommend getting anything less than the 64GB.


The iPhone 7 will be more Water-Resistant.  
LIKELY - I wouldn't go as far as saying the new iPhone will be water-proof, remember there is still an open port, i.e.: the Lightning Port, which will even warn you in iOS 10 if you plug in a moist cable. However, I believe Apple will make the iPhone 7 more splash-proof.


The iPhone 7 will have a Larger Protruding Camera. 
LIKELY - As the iPhone 7 will feature a better camera, and Apple loves to make their products as thin as possible, that unfortunately means that the camera will protrude out. Lets just hope for the design sacrifice, that these photos are almost SLR worthy.


The iPhone 7 Plus will have a Dual-Camera Lens.
LIKELY - All rumors are pointing towards the iPhone 7 Plus continuing to be Apple's flagship iPhone, and this new iPhone will feature a Dual Camera. Other than the ability to take better pictures and maybe refocus photos after the fact, it's unknown what other capabilities the dual-lens may provide. 3D? Doubtful.


The iPhone 7 will have a Flush, Pressure-Sensitive Home Button.
PARTLY UNLIKELY - Unfortunately, at least for now, the Home Button is here to stay, keeping those larger top and bottom bezels. And while Apple could make the Home Button pressure-sensitive like they have done with the MacBooks, I believe that it will still be a separate part, and will not be flush to the iPhone's front glass screen. One reason; accessibility. This would be problematic for some, eg: the blind, if they couldn't feel where the home button was. Apple would at least need to leave the ring around the button.


The iPhone 7 will feature Higher Quality Displays; 1080p for the iPhone 7 and 2K for the iPhone 7 Plus.
UNLIKELY - I seriously doubt Apple will change screen resolutions at this point in time. Changing screen resolutions could create problems for all apps and their graphics and plus, since Apple is rumored to change to a OLED screen in 2017, it'd be more likely, that's when we may see a resolution bump.


The iPhone 7 will come in Three Models: 7, Plus, and Pro.
UNLIKELY - The 'iPhone Plus' is looking to be the 'iPhone Pro'. So unless the confusion is with a name change, I believe Apple will stick to the two different sizes for the 7, with the larger model having extra benefits, eg: the dual-camera.


The 2017 10th Anniversary iPhone will be so much more awesome and feature a total redesign made of all glass and feature a curved screen like the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, with a new higher resolution OLED display and you might as well wait for next years iPhone.
SOMEWHAT LIKELY - While yes, Apple have patents for a curved glass display with digital buttons [1] [2] that'd replace the existing physical ones, that doesn't necessarily mean that will be seeing this technology anytime soon, or even ever. There are rumors saying that Foxconn has been working on creating an all-glass case, but remember, Apple creates all sorts of models, and then would choose the best to go with. At this time, we don't know if Apple will stick to a 'S' model iPhone for 2017, or break their current trend because it will be the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. I'm sure Apple will want to go all out and create the best iPhone they can for the 10th and maybe play catch up to their competitors - so it is very possible that next years iPhone will be 'the one to buy' and not this years.


Should You Upgrade To The iPhone 7?
Apple hasn't even announced this years new iPhone yet! At this point it's all rumors. Yes, in previous years, we have known a lot about the new iPhone before it was announced, like this year, but lets wait anyway!

I'd say if you have the iPhone 5S or earlier, then yes, you should upgrade. If you have the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S, it's a tough call. Unless your happy with upgrading again next year, if the 10th anniversary iPhone is heaps better and features that redesign that everyone is waiting for. If you have the iPhone 6S, I doubt they'll be a need for you to upgrade this year.

If you have the iPhone 6, if what you really want is that redesign and OLED screen, then maybe hold onto your iPhone for another year. But it is a risk, because if next year they announce the iPhone 7S and it has the same design again and possibly the same LCD screen ... �\_(?)_/�

Got an iOS question that you want answered? Follow and tweet me on Twitter and your question just might get answered on this site! And maybe on Twitter too.  

How to evolve Eevee in iOS and Android game 'Pok�mon GO' to the evolution of your choice.

The trick: Rename Eevee to "Sparky" for Jolteon, "Rainer" for Vaporeon, and "Pyro" for Flareon.
Note: some players have reported that this trick will only work once for each evolution!

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